Redemption
by Gater101
Summary: OneShot. Bruce wondered just how much more time he would need. Bruce/Rachel.


Title: Redemption  
Summary: Bruce wondered just how much more time he needed.  
Characters Bruce, Rachel & Alfred  
Pairing: Bruce/Rachel  
Rating: K-K+

"You always want to believe there's good in people."

He looked up from the newspaper before him, laying his coffee on the small round table and smiled at her as she crossed the balcony and slid into the seat across from him. The cool autumn mornings were the perfect salvation for Bruce's recovering body, the sun's rays warm as they danced across his face, the early morning dew ignored by his slipper covered feet.

"What do you mean?" He asked after he brushed his lips against hers, her smile small as he pulled back.

Alfred had replaced Bruce's usual early morning coffee with some Earl Grey tea and he watched as Rachel spun a slice of lemon around the small china cup with a long silver spoon. He would never tire of seeing her in the mornings, her hair appropriately ruffled from sleep, her cheeks rosy from the warmth of the duvet she had just slipped from.

"You always believe that there's something good in everyone – you trust that."

Bruce scrunched up his face and shook his head, laughing lightly in the back of his throat. Bruce _knew_ the darkness that consumed people, knew that there was not always good in some.

"I don't..." he began but she cut him off with a wave of her hand and he watched as she unfurled her lips from around the edge of the cup.

"Not everyone is redeemable, Bruce," she said lightly as she covered his hand with hers and Bruce frowned as he stared at their joined hands. "Not everyone can be brought back from the edge."

He looked up to her eyes then, the blue eyes he had known since childhood and he wondered, not for the first time, why he had chosen Batman over her. He turned his hand beneath hers and entwined their fingers, marvelling at the contrast between his big tanned ones and her slender pale ones as they connected.

"I came back."

She smiled over at him and tugged on his hand, drawing him across the table slightly as she teased his lips with her own. He enjoyed this side of her.

"You're too good. You really are incorruptible." He pulled back from her slightly and searched through her features, her downturned eyes lifting to meet his. He could see the frown take over her forehead but he refrained from lifting a hand and smoothing the wrinkles out. "What is it?" She asked, concerned, her free hand coming to rest on his forearm.

He shook his head as he sat back, drawing away from her grasp as he lifted a triangle of toast.

"Nothing," he murmured quietly, trying to ignore the tickle of recollection at the back of his mind.

She reached out to him again and he let her take his hand between the two of hers.

"Bruce, tell me what's wrong."

"Someone said that to me once before," he said quietly but tried to ease her concern with a smile as he tried to push thoughts of the Joker far from his mind. A small wind gusted up from the grounds below and blew her hair, billowing it across her shoulders. He smiled as he tucked a strand behind her ear, watching as she ducked her head into his hand, brushing her cheek against his palm. "It doesn't matter now," he whispered as he traced her lip with his thumb.

She looked up to him again and smiled, her lips parting slightly as she nibbled on her bottom lip. He knew what that look meant.

"You are a good man, Bruce," she reaffirmed and he smiled tightly back at her; if only the people of Gotham could believe that too. "It's just a shame the people of Gotham can't know that."

He ducked his head and pinched the bridge of his nose, hoping to ease the building tension behind his eyes.

He lifted his head when he heard Alfred step out onto the balcony, the older man wielding a tray with a tea decanter, a cup and a holder fill of toast. He blinked the sleep from his eyes and glanced over to Rachel but she was gone, the spot where her tea cup sat empty and he closed his eyes again, dropping his head into his upturned palms.

It was just another dream.

Alfred set the tray on the small table in front of him and a gust of wind blew up from the grounds below, breezing through Bruce's longer than normal hair and he wished, not for the first time, that Rachel Dawes hadn't existed. Because if she hadn't, he would be spared the pain of losing her, of loving her – of waiting for her.

"Dreaming again, Master Wayne?" Alfred asked as he stood by Bruce's shoulder. Bruce nodded and looked away from Alfred's comforting gaze, hoping the older man wouldn't see the pain that flashed across Bruce's features. "They'll pass, in time."

Bruce nodded and Alfred walked away, the sound of his steps fading as he left Bruce alone with his grief, his dreams – with his pain.

"_They'll pass, in time."_

Alfred had said those words for five years and Bruce wondered just how much more time he needed.


End file.
